Talks - Analyzing from the Fourth Dimension

Analyzing from the Fourth Dimension

Analyzing from the Fourth Dimension

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
, 2009-03-05

The third dimension is our emotional reactions to challenging changes in the circumstances of life. We can improve experiences by utilizing the fourth dimension to gain insight and see the whole pattern.

Unedited Transcript:

From Merging with Siva, a recent lesson.

"Of course, our most cherished theology is monistic Saiva Siddhanta, the advaitic teachings inherited from our guru parampara who outlined the course we are on. This teaches us that God and man are ultimately one. This teaches us that our Supreme God, Siva, is the creator of the universe, and He is also the creation. He is not different from it.

"We must go to the temple and worship, with all our heart, God in form before our karmas are cleared, our responsibilities paid, and we realize the formless perfection of God Siva. The guha, the cave of consciousness, opens its doors for us to sit comfortably, mentally undistracted, within the cavity within the head, there to begin the yoga of union for personal, spiritual, everlasting attainment. Saiva Siddhanta outlines the path that we are on. It tells us how to attain these goals.

"It is said in our Hindu scriptures that it is necessary to have a satguru. However it is possible for an individual to accomplish all of this by himself without a guru. Possible, but most difficult and exceedingly rare. There may be four or five in a hundred years, or less. Scriptures explain that perhaps in past lives such a soul would have been well disciplined by some guru and is helped inwardly by God in this life. With rare exceptions, a guru is necessary to guide the aspirant on the path as far as he is willing and able to go in his current incarnation. Few will reach the Ultimate. The satguru is needed because the mind is cunning and the ego is a self-perpetuating mechanism. It is unable and unwilling to transcend itself by itself. Therefore, one needs the guidance of another who has gone through the same process, who has faithfully followed the path to its natural end and therefore can gently lead us to God within ourselves. Remember, the satguru will keep you on the path, but you have to walk the path yourself.

"It is the guru's job to inspire, to assist, to guide and sometimes even impel the disciple to move a little farther toward the Self of himself than he has been able to go by himself."

One of the tools Gurudeva's given us is the concepts of the Shum language. Looking up, and there it is up in the banners there.

One of the concepts is the idea that the mind has seven dimensions, and specifically the idea I pulled out this morning is how we can improve our experiences in the third dimension by utilizing the fourth. In other words, the third dimension is our emotional reactions, our emotional ties to other people. And that's a challenging area to keep smooth. Because we run into difficulties in life. Everything's going along fine, and then something changes in life and our relationships to others change and all of a sudden we have a tension, or more of a tendency to argue than we had. Something changed in the circumstances in life and made it more challenging.

So that's always happening to us. But one of the problems is if we don't have a clear overview of it. So, that's what Gurudeva's explaining here.

"An outer-dimensional perspective, looking from the outside into the mind and trying to understand it, only results in partial concepts. We are unable to grasp the whole from such a vantage point. Similarly, we can learn about a city by traveling around the streets of that city and talking with selected residents. Generally, we learn one section of the city better and neglect others. Only by climbing to the peak of a nearby mountain can we study and comprehend the entire pattern of the city below. That overall vision or mountaintop consciousness is what the fourth dimension provides. Once that all-encompassing view is gained, we can enter any section of the city with confidence."

So that's the idea. If we can utilize this chakra, the fourth chakra, we can look down upon what's going on in our emotional nature, our interactions with people, our actions-reactions and see the whole pattern. If we only see part of the pattern, it's hard to adjust it. We kind of just, we know something is not right but we don't have the overview of it. If we can look down upon it clearly, then we see the pattern, and usually we're stuck in something. We don't want it to work out this way but say, husband and wife have a pattern of talking things over and talking them over and a little more sided and they get into an argument. It's just a pattern they have and they don't want to do it but they don't know how to stop. So to figure out how to stop, you need the overview. Then you have the possibility of having insights into the pattern to see what makes it polarize. What makes two positions be taken instead of one position developed into, you know, in a free-flowing way. When we get into an argument the one position has become two rigid positions and neither one is willing to budge.

So if we can have an insight into what to do to prevent polarizing, what is it that causes that to happen? Then we can work on not having that happen as much. It's unrealistic to think we can change something that's happening regularly so that it never happens, but at least we can reduce it.